Below is a slideshow of photographs taken at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, south of Monterey, California, and north of the Big Sur wilderness, the boundless beauty of which calls to any man whose spirit yearns to venture beyond the beaten path and extricate himself from the confines of the artificial, indoor screenworld – where we languish in air-conditioned prisons fondling our dingalings and playing with our fidget widgets – and immerse oneself in the subliminal beauty of green mountains that slip into celestial blue seas where otters sway in the canopy tangles of kelp forests and whales, compelled by universal biological and evolutionary demands for survival, journey thousands of miles in a never-ending migration dictated by feeding and breeding. Point Lobos State Reserve is largely a tease due to the fact that visitors are required to stay on the trails which grant you limited access through the park. This is good because it means that people are discouraged from wandering off trail and harming the outlying fauna or stomping their way to a pristine beach, thereby flattening the entire park, but at the same time the inability to deviate from the designated path can be frustrating for those whom seek greater solace and adventure. Alas, for one’s adventurous spirit to be satiated, you will most like have to travel away from the park, and from Point Lobos the most alluring place to do so is Big Sur. But the road to Big Sur from the north is currently blocked by a massive 550-meter landslide which is expected to take a year to clear.

My first reaction to walking around Point Lobos was, “I can’t wait to come back here.” I knew I had limited time and did not intend to cover much ground, so my mind leapt to the future prospects of returning. While my excitement was understandable, I reprimanded myself for thinking this way and not enjoying the present. I did not know (and still do not know) if I was ever going to return to explore the greater Big Sur area for a longer period of time, but at that moment I was certain that I was there and that I should cherish my presence instead of obsessing about how I would return one day. There is a fallacy amongst many people in that we have a tendency to think that in the future things will be better: that we’ll be richer, healthier, more productive, more knowledge, more accomplishment. While it is good to think ahead, even if the projections on your vision board are slightly unrealistic, to do so at the expense of appreciating the present can be detrimental. It important to appreciate what you have when you have it, because you never know when it will be taken away from you, or when you will be taken away from it.